Physics

From the forces that keep athletes twirling and sliding, to the weird laws governing the world of the very small, to the far-out concepts of time travel and alternate universes, physics covers a lot of interesting territory. Here, Live Science keeps you abreast of all the fascinating physics discoveries.Physics

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Abstract image of quantum tunneling or space-time wormholes.

Physicists watch quantum particles tunnel through solid barriers. Here's what they found.

By Diane Lincoln

A team of physicists has devised a simple way to measure the duration of a bizarre phenomenon called quantum tunneling.

Equipment at the ISOLDE proton-blasting laboratory where astatine was isolated and studied. ISOLDE is part of CERN, the European particle physics research collaboration.

Heavy atom spills its guts in decade-long experiment

By Rafi Letzter

A new experiment on ultra-rare astatine could open the door to cancer treatments and new research into super-heavy atoms.

Light curves around a black hole's event horizon in this illustration.

Thousands of Earthlike 'blanets' might circle the Milky Way's central black hole

By Rafi Letzter

Tens of thousands of planets like Earth and Neptune might orbit the giant black hole at the center of the Milky Way.

Something caused a giant black hole's bright corona to wink out. Researchers suspect it may have been a collision with a star, illustrated here.

Mysterious force destroys monster black hole's ring of plasma

By Rafi Letzter

Telescopes all over the world watched a bright flash light up space around a distant, supermassive black hole. And then, within hours, it was gone.

A picture taken on July 19, 2020, shows a screen broadcasting the launch of the "Hope" Mars probe at the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Center in Dubai.

Here's why the United Arab Emirates launched a mission to Mars

By Rafi Letzter

The United Arab Emirates' probe Hope is on its way to Mars, marking the first planetary science mission led by an Arab country. Here's why.

Left: An illustration shows what a shrouded black hole might look like. Right: An image of the Chandra Deep Field-South (CDF-S) highlights where the new cocooned black holes were detected.

28 'cocooned' black holes found hiding in plain sight

By Rafi Letzter

New research re-examining old data showed that 28 objects previously described as distant galaxies or dim black holes are in fact bright, shrouded supermassive black holes.

A portion of the Atacama Cosmology Telescope's new image of the cosmic microwave background

Oldest surviving light reveals the universe's true age

By Rafi Letzter

One of the most important controversies in physics remains unresolved after a major new study. But at least we have a new precise number for the universe's age.

On the left is Mirach's Ghost as seen by the Hubble Space Telescope. On the right, Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) data reveals unprecedented detail of swirling gas in the same region.

Origin of 'Mirach's Ghost' perplexes black hole scientists

By Rafi Letzter

Physicists are step closer to understanding where the largest black holes in the universe came from. But new data reveals even deeper mysteries around their creation.

an abstract view of a wormhole with a clock overlaid

The universe's clock might have bigger ticks than we imagine

By Adam Mann

The tiniest ticks possible

When penguins are pooping, you'd better stand back.

Penguins shoot 'poop bombs' more than 4 feet, incredibly important study finds

By Mindy Weisberger

How much force must a penguin apply in order to blast a flying poop projectile, and how far can it travel? Fortunately for us all, scientists now have answers.

Illustration of a tetraquark composed of two charm quarks and two charm antiquarks, detected for the first time inside CERN's Large Hadron Collider.

Physicists discover new, exotic flavor of tetraquark

By Lorenzo Capriotti, Harry Cliff

Physicists have discovered a new, exotic kind of tetraquark, made up of four charm quarks. They say it's a major breakthrough.

An artists' impression shows a black hole swallowing a mysterious smaller object in deep space.

Strange space signal could come from a 'mystery object'

By Rafi Letzter

A big black hole gobbled up a mystery object. It emitted no light detectable from Earth. What was it?

Early data from the Planck collaboration maps microwaves across the sky.

Why some physicists really think there's a 'mirror universe' hiding in space-time

By Rafi Letzter

What happens when you turn space-time upside-down?

Astronomers solve whirling mystery around nearby black hole

By Rafi Letzter

How fast is this nearby black hole spinning? A new measurement offers clues that could solve the old mystery.

A team works on assembling the XENON1T dark matter experiment.

BREAKING: Physicists announce first direct evidence for 'axions'

By Rafi Letzter

An experiment buried underground in Italy has turned up a mysterious result, and a never-before-seen "axion" particle seems like the most likely explanation.

The velocity-distribution data for gaseous rubidium atoms which confirmed the discovery of the Bose–Einstein condensate in 1995.

Exotic, fifth state of matter created on the space station

By Charles Q. Choi

Scientists have generated an exotic form of matter in the unique microgravity environment aboard the International Space Station and are using it to explore the quantum world, a new study finds.